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I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.
I wrote 880 words this afternoon, so I get to post to LJ as a reward. Yay!
Sorting is a bad, bad thing. Hogwarts sorting, that is, not, say, sorting out all the videotapes stacked around your television or the comic books piled up on the coffee table.
Sorting is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If somebody says, hey, you got put in Hufflepuff because you're a little slow and dull, but dedicated and loyal, you're going to believe that, whether or not it's entirely true. If somebody says, hey, all Slytherins are sneaky and faintly evil, and everybody treats you as though you're sneaky and faintly evil, you'll become sneaky and faintly evil.
Sorting discourages diversity. Is it really good for you to be around a bunch of other people with the same strong traits as you? Wouldn't you end up killing each other eventually? A more even spread of personality types is more healthy, IMEO.
Sorting is a permanent record. Or is it? In fic, the house you're sorted into seems to follow you around for the rest of your life. But I'm not sure that there's evidence of that in the books. I certainly hope it's not true. Otherwise, it's like the whole course of your life is determined by a ratty old hat when you're eleven years old. And that would suck.
That said, it's a lot of fun to sit around in the pub and sort folks from your fave books and movies into houses. Luke Skywalker? Hufflepuff. Qui-Gon Jinn? Slytherin.
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Since I'm blathering about Sorting anyhow, I might as well go on about Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. I am a Four Houses proponent. I know a lot of people place them all in Gryffindor, but I don't think they all were. Of course, there's no evidence that they were in four different houses, but it has a certain aesthetic symmetry to it.
The main reason they can't be all in Gryffindor is Sirius Black.
"Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin," said Hagrid darkly. "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin." (PS, Chapter 5)
Sirius Black is a wizard whom Hagrid knows personally who went bad. Ergo, Sirius Black was in Slytherin House.
(Of course I don't actually believe that only Slytherins go all Anakin, but Hagrid seems to and that's all that matters for this argument.)
So, James in Gryffindor, Sirius in Slytherin. I would place Remus in Hufflepuff and Peter in Ravenclaw. Since loyalty is a major Huff trait, I don't see how Peter could be one, in the logic of the novels. And as Remus drinks to a Gryffindor victory over Ravenclaw in Quidditch, it's not likely that it's his old house.
Rebuttal?
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I'm having this moment of "Welcome to England. They have a class system there."
The sorting hat is a fictionalized version of the exam called the 11+ that British kids used to have to take when they were, duh, 11, which decided if you were going to grammar school, technical school, or "secondary modern" (30-something anglophiles may remember that Elvis Costello wrote a song by that title.) Grammar school is the only route to university, and it used to be that most people who went to secondary modern schools simply stayed until 14 and then went to work in factories and stuff. The system is changed now (I think, though I'm not sure, that they did away with the hated 11+ exam in the early 70s), but there's still a fairly strict kind of sorting, educationally speaking, with many, many fewer English students getting to attend university even today (certainly many many fewer than Americans, where cash buys you anything) which puts a lot more weight on O-levels and A-levels and such.
But aside from that, you're sorted by your accent in England if by nothing else, and as someone who spent some time in grad school at Cambridge, well. Let's just say that that there, in the belly of the beast, U and non-U still exists and no mistake. Much as I love the HP universe, I feel like Americans in particular don't get the extent to which they're fetishizing, pretty unproblematically, esp in the films, all these public school trappings with no context. (Not you, I should say; more my students, but I'm shocked by what they don't know, like they think that Hogwarts is a total fantasy realm and not just the magical version of something that exists.) As somebody who hung out with the foreign students, well, believe you me, I have seen the Draco Malfoys of Trinity and Christ Church and it ain't pretty.)
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I'd been thinking that this was covered by the whole Wizard-Muggle thing. But it seems that it's a lot more complex and layered than that.
And thanks for the info about the 11+. That's very illuminating.
To a degree, I'm probably aware of the class implications but just want to ignore them because they are disturbing to me. I'm glad that they're downplaying that aspect in the LotR films because in the books it makes me so uncomfortable.
I remember Stephen Fry recounting in his memoirs how after a grand spree of credit card theft, he ended up in a (I think juvenile) correctional institution. And some of the other inmates thought that it wasn't right that he should be there, simply because of his class. They, not he, thought he should have had better treatment.
That disturbed me too.
On your comment-
Of course, for me, it was a vindication of my parents existence- they both immigrated from the Carribean 40 years ago, and to have their youngest child studying philosophy in England was tops.
Americans tend to romanticise what they are not under- the worship of Princess Diana without understanding the type of classs strictures she was under,laughing at Cockney accents while not understanding the class behind it, and certainly the rules and strictures behind Hogwarts, which seem fantastic but to me is rather worrying.
On a related note- Snape? Social Riser, you think?
Re: Snape as Social Riser
(Anonymous) 2003-05-06 06:49 am (UTC)(link)His language certain deteriorates when he's angry-- his words with Filch on the stairs in Goblet of Fire as an example. Usually he's very smooth and refined when speaking, to a degree that makes me suspect he's trained himself to be so.
I've also noticed that he seems friendly with the non-teachers on staff. He lets Filch bandage his legs, Hagrid defends him to Harry and company, etc.
Actually, given that Slytherin House selects for cunning and ambition, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the children were from poor families. After all, what would give an 11-year old the burning ambition that is supposed to be characteristic of Slytherin? Poverty, abuse, and need for attention -- so poor kids, abused kids, and neglected (middle) kids could easily make up the pool the house draws from, barring the legacy students like Draco.
Plus, it makes an interesting difference from Gryffindor and its happy family students.
Labidolemur
PS Would pureblood, we-never-interact-with-Muggles wizards like the Malfoys and the Weasleys have a distinctive accent? It seems possible, but I'm just an ignorant American; we have very few really distinctive accents, compared to Britain.
Re: Snape as Social Riser
PS Would pureblood, we-never-interact-with-Muggles wizards like the Malfoys and the Weasleys have a distinctive accent? It seems possible, but I'm just an ignorant American; we have very few really distinctive accents, compared to Britain.
Oh yes, they certainly would.
In the movies they tried to show this, with varying degrees of sucess.(the young actors playing Draco and Lucius tried to sound upper register. Felton's voice was changing, so it cracked up a couple of times. Issacs was okay, but he was not always consisent)
as for Americans, we actually do have recognisable accents and tones of speech. although it is not PC, we can tell if someone is poor or not by the way they use speech, or *choose* to use speech. Believe or not, Americans were better spoken in all classes about 30 years ago or so.
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I think them being in different houses is an interesting fic idea. However, I think the books pretty much stick to the idea that people stay within their own houses to make their closest friends. Learning to be an animagus to be with your bud sounds like an interhouse type thing.
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Sirius Black is a wizard whom Hagrid knows personally who went bad. Ergo, Sirius Black was in Slytherin House.
Can you say, "unreliable narrator"? Can you say, "exaggeration for effect"? Sure you can.
The prejudiced comments of a disgruntled half-giant should not be taken for fact.
That said, I like the idea that MWPP would be in different houses. But that's unlikely, considering the house-friendships that are made, and besides, JKR herself has stated in interviews that they were all Gryffindor. (And Lily, too.)
Oh, and there's an essay on this topic in The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter. (On the notion of how the heck can JKR say, 'it's what you make of yourself' when the Sorting Hat seems to pre-judge people and determine who they will be and how people will perceive them.)
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Yes, that's a good point. And, as I say, I don't believe that myself. But Hagrid isn't very subtle and clearly, from PoA, the whole Sirius Black incident affected him strongly. I can't believe he'd forget about it.
As well, I find that these books, more so than most I read, encourage us to take things at face value. I'm not sure why -- maybe because we don't ever get too deep into anyone's head, not even Harry's. I try not to take things at face value, but I keep feeling that I'm intended to.
Interviews, well, what can I say? :) But I'm sticking with my theory, cause I like it. (Plus I hate the whole "
ElvesGryffindors are superior" thing.)no subject
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As for sorting MWPP, I always figured Sirius and James were together regardless, and everyone just conveniently forgets that Sirius was a Gryffindor, because it messes with their image of the house. And also points to his innocence in a meta way - if he were in Gryffindor, he must be innocent. (This doesn't explain Peter, of course, but I don't think they'd have allowed him to tag along if he weren't in Gryffindor. I'd have placed Lupin in Ravenclaw, but again, I don't think they'd have gone through the whole Animagus thing for him were he not in their house). Not to mention that I don't think Snape and Sirius would hate each other so much had they been in the same house, or, rather, I think it would have come up if they had been in the same house (though given some fanon portrayals of Slytherins, you'd think Snape would be impressed that Sirius tried to kill him. *snerk*).
And I've thought about this way too much.